Pasaje del Terror London

The Pasaje del Terror crew had been looking for a London base for a number of years and when the basement area of the Trocadero became available, it was an obvious choice for the attraction. Anyone who has been in one of the many other Pasaje del Terror shows around the world, will know what to expect in the darkened corridors. But to try and make a complete experience, this Pasaje has a surprise addition – a 12 minute 3D film to set the mood. To an English audience looking for scares, this was a good way to set the scene, even if the accents were a bit dodgy (we understand the film was made in Spain using Spanish actors) It could also do with being a bit shorter, as the tourists we were with didn’t seem to understand a lot of it and chatted and shrieked the whole way through. On a story note, certain elements of the film could have been quite clever. Through a never really explained portal, Jack the Ripper finds a way back into our own world and then can be seen wandering backstage at the Pasaje. At this point we were expecting to see the character make a real appearance to tie the story in with the rest of the attraction, but the film ended and we were led into a corridor. At this point ANY tension created by the film/story was lost; and you could be in for a long wait while they split the possible 80 strong crowd into smaller batches for the start of the journey. Once batched, it’s on to the main part of the show and here is where The Pasaje excels. It’s quite interesting to see that nothing really changes in the Pasaje world and the mantra of “if it aint broke don’t fix it” seems to prevail. An often heard criticism of the Pasaje is that there is no coherency or story to the attraction – it’s just a random set of scenes and scares following one another. To be honest though – this sort of attraction doesn’t always need a full narrative to succeed and Pasaje’s eclectic scenes of graveyards, bedrooms and swampland all sit together nicely and complement the different stories played out in each room. If you have experienced the Blackpool show then you really aren’t going to see anything different. Scene after scene almost slavishly follow the same pattern or layout and most of the scares would become predicable after a few visits. Having experienced some of the other London based attractions, Pasaje does feel quite choreographed and stilted. You never really feel that the actors are going to leave their positions and do something daring or chase you, which is a shame as the acting talent is top notch and could be really effective if given the chance to ad lib a bit more. As is usual with the Pasaje brand, the show relies on standard characters and horror icons that by now are starting to get a bit dated – Freddy Kruger, Leatherface, the possessed girl from the Exorcist etc who may not even be recognisable to younger audiences. This isn’t to say that they don’t create great impact scares but how long can people keep being scared by the same old movie characters? All of the above sound like criticisms and they are in a way BUT we really enjoyed ourselves each time we went through. The design of everything from the sets through to the costumes is extremely impressive and creates a detailed immersive environment in a central London basement area. Certainly most groups around us were screaming in enjoyment and we had a great time and jumped off our feet loads of time. We just felt that the attraction could be world class if a) they allowed the actors just a little more freedom in their roles and b) got rid of the awful movie!

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